Shipping billionaire Idan Ofer has banked a tidy profit after selling some of his shares in product tanker owner Ardmore Shipping.
A filing shows the stake held by the Eastern Pacific Shipping principal has been reduced from 10.5% to 4.9%.
This has seen the 3.625m shares owned through EPS Ventures cut to 1.97m.
The sale of 1.725m shares would have fetched $24.3m at the current price of $14.07 in New York, up nearly 5%.
The tycoon bought into Ireland-based Ardmore last April.
The $8.56 rise in the share price since then means a profit of $14.8m on the sale.
EPS Ventures is wholly owned by Quantum Pacific Shipping, a discretionary trust in which Ofer is the beneficiary.
Ofer first bought a 9.53% holding, before increasing this to 10.5%.
He has yet to comment on the deals, and the filings do not contain information on his intentions for the investment, which now appear to be purely financial.
The US Securities & Exchange Commission 13G schedule form is typically used to indicate investment when there is no aim to influence control of the company.
Ofer was believed to be the biggest shareholder in Ardmore, ahead of US fund Private Management Group on a little over 8%.
Takeover target?
Ardmore has not commented on the moves either.
The shipowner is a perennial object of takeover speculation, which chief executive Anthony Gurnee has acknowledged.
Ardmore has a fleet of about 30 product and chemical carriers ranging between 25,000 dwt and 50,000 dwt, including tankers that are commercially managed or finance-leased.
In recent months, Ofer has invested in International Seaways, Edda Wind and Awilco LNG.
He is also associated with Ace Tankers, the Dutch shipowner that acquired six stainless steel chemical carriers from Singapore-based Hafnia for $252.4m last year.
Hafnia had acquired those in 2021 in its takeover of Oaktree Capital Management’s Chemical Tankers Inc.
In 2019, Eastern Pacific swooped on the 13-ship chemical tanker fleet of Hafnia parent BW Group.
And TradeWinds reported that Ofer and Eastern Pacific bought a stake of 3% to 4% in New York-listed Scorpio Tankers in the same year.
The magnate has long wanted a public tanker company. He failed with a $200m listing for his Quantum Crude Tankers company in Oslo in 2014.
